Braiding machines have been used extensively in the textile industry. Such braiding machines are shown and described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 352,804, issued Nov. 16, 1886 to Bowerson; 433,855, issued Aug. 5, 1890 to Ellis; 830,137, issued Sept. 4, 1906 to Diss; 1,398,444, issued Nov. 29, 1921 to Pfrunder; Re. 15,909, issued Sept. 2, 1924 to Pfrunder; 1,900,310, issued Mar. 7, 1933 to Somerville; 2,254,895, issued Sept. 2, 1941 to Johnston, Jr.; 2,782,590, issued Feb. 26, 1957 to Lowe; 2,878,514, issued Mar. 24, 1959 to Nichols et al; 3,360,915, issued Jan. 2, 1968 to Franzen; 3,421,406, issued Jan. 14, 1969 to Mitchell et al; 3,439,486, issued Apr. 22, 1969 to Klein; 3,552,693, issued Jan. 5, 1971 to Scherf; 3,834,146, issued Sept. 10, 1974 to Nessler, et al; and 4,262,479, issued Apr. 21, 1981 to Lenorak. Another similar type of device intended for use with wire is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 359,409, issued Mar. 15, 1887 to Stone.
Such prior art braiding machines for use in creating yarn, for example, are simply twisting machines. Other such devices for use in forming rope or cord ordinarily employ means for simply interweaving two strands. Other such devices for use in the textile industry tend to be complicated apparatus, part of an overall machine, with complex mechanisms.
A braiding machine intended specifically for hair is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,038,996, issued Aug. 2, 1977, to Eronini, et al. The hair braider apparatus of that patent is a portable hair braider which is motor operated, and uses a plurality of foot members for hair parters to divide the hair over a predetermined width of the scalp, with hair grabbers then clamping the hair thusparted and rotating the strands for weaving them together to form a braid.
Another braiding machine intended for use with hair is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,307,737, issued Dec. 29, 1981 to Shipman. In the apparatus of this patent, three strands of hair are drawn through three elongated tubes mounted for movement within an elongated cylindrical housing, having an operating lever extending out through a slot in the surface thereof. The tubes are intermittently alternated by the operator, a pair at a time, by means of guide members positioned within a central opening. The three tubes are movable along a track passing through the guide members for alternately selecting a pair of tubes for rotation.
Other braiding apparatus intended for use with hair is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,369,690, issued Jan. 25, 1983 to Sapkus, and assigned to Mattel, Inc., the assignee of the instant invention. The apparatus disclosed is a hand held, hand operated device having a plurality of aligned gear members, each having an aperture therethrough for passage therethrough of a plurality of hair filaments with a first pair of adjacent gear members having the positions interchanged in response to actuation of a lever member in a first direction with the remaining gear member then being interchanged with the adjacent one in response to pivoting of the lever member in the reverse direction.